Another photo showed him sitting next to the late leader of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards’ Quds Force, Qassem Soleimani, who was killed by a US drone strike in Baghdad four years ago.

The senior source said Tawil’s death marked a big blow given his experience including deployments with Hezbollah in Syria and Iraq.

Hezbollah says its current campaign against Israel aims to support Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, which has been devastated by an Israeli offensive since Hamas’ October 7 attack. The hostilities between Hezbollah and Israel have largely been contained to areas near the Lebanese-Israeli border.

Tensions spiked higher last week when an Israeli strike killed deputy Hamas leader Saleh al-Arouri in Beirut’s southern suburbs, an area controlled by Hezbollah. Israel has neither confirmed nor denied its responsibility for that attack.

Hezbollah said on Saturday it had hit a key Israeli observation post with 62 rockets as a “preliminary response” to Arouri’s killing.

Other members of the Radwan force killed during the hostilities include Abbas Raad, son of a leading Hezbollah politician. He was killed in an Israeli strike in November.

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Hezbollah’s secretary-general Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah warned Israel in two televised addresses last week not to launch a full-scale war on Lebanon. “Whoever thinks of war with us – in one word, he will regret it,” Nasrallah said.

On Sunday, Hezbollah deputy leader Naim Qassem said the group did not want to “initiate total war, but if Israel decides to wage total war on us then we in the field will respond with total war without hesitation and with all we have”.

Nineteen Hezbollah fighters have been killed in Syria since the hostilities erupted.